The Blood of Life - Chapter 7 - The Lonely Hunt

I think this is the last complete chapter of the novel I will share since I'm knee deep now into revising later chapters, but there's an excerpt I plan to publish next month. With how the writing and editing of this book has gone, updates for the book to Patreon have been inconsistent. I'm still working out what the best workflow for Patreon content is that also lets me stay focused on my big projects like the novel. I'll discuss that at some point next year once I get through major edits on this novel.

I ask Ekrem if he can leave a window open for me upstairs, and he offers the one in his bedroom. It is there where I make the change to my other form. One moment I am standing there, a naked fox in his prime, and the next I am small and free. He gasps at the sight of the small bat that has taken my place, but I am already beating my wings to launch myself out of the window. I circle the house once and catch sight of Ekrem watching me from the window before I climb higher and away, letting the ground fall away from me. Catching my bearings, I circle above the village to find the road to Herzok, and then follow the line of dirt through the fields and into the distant woods.

The flight only takes about three quarters of an hour to complete and reminds me how fast I am when I take to the air. The only travelers I see out is a farmer with two oxen pulling a wagon heading for Strasek and a stagecoach, bouncing down the road quickly toward Herzok, kicking up dust. I shadow it for a few minutes. The driver, a bear, seems none the wiser to my presence since I stay out of the light of the lanterns hanging from the stagecoach. I can tell though the horses are slightly unsettled by my presence, so I push ahead. The rest of the road is quiet and unused at night.

Once it enters the woods, following it is a little trickier, so I drop down to skim below the branches for a while before I again climb above the trees, feeling the freedom of the night sky. The curse that binds me to the dark also lets me see the world like I never had before; the simple joy of flying almost lets me forget what cost I paid for this ability.

After the forest, I emerge on the outskirts of Herzok, and this is where I can see progress has come to this corner of the empire. A hundred years ago, this village was no different from Strasek, but since then it has tripled in size and become a proper town. Church steeples reach for the sky and smoke from fireplaces make the air above the town thick. On the edge of town, I can see a mill with a smokestack, and nearby a straight, slightly curved path leads into the nearby woods. A railroad line has already been surveyed, and some work on it is already underway. Herzok is just waiting to be linked with the rest of the empire.

I’m surprised by the town’s growth, but it is good that progress is occurring here. Without the railroads linking this area to the outside, the people will be left behind. However, this growth also brings a whole other problem for me. If Lorelei is here, she won’t be easy to find. Scouring the streets from the air, I count four different inns, each with their own common room and a half dozen taverns. This is a town big enough to hide in, but not one so big I will go unremarked upon if I somehow draw attention to myself.

First though, before I can investigate, I need to find some clothes for myself. I circle around the town, looking for someone who has left their laundry out overnight, hoping to find something that fits me. The first house I spot with laundry left outside has only dresses, so I pass by it. After flying on for twenty more minutes and having to double back, I spot a farmhouse with promising looking clothes. I fly low to the ground and when I get close, I change back to my true form, landing in a crouch.

I stay there, and swivel my ears, listening for any sounds. If someone saw me, I will need to flee immediately. There are no answers about my sudden appearance I can make that would satisfy an astute observer. After a minute, and only hearing insects, I feel satisfied I was unnoticed. Only then do I go to inspect the clothes.

Even though they’re freshly washed, they have a bit of wolf scent about them, which is probably the owner’s. There are two dresses and some woman’s underclothes which I ignore, but there’s also a pair of men’s pants, multiple shirts, and even underclothes. The shirt I select is a bit big on me and a little worn, but it covers me. It’s still a little damp, but it will have to do. There’s also a vest, which I take. That thankfully is dry, but it presses in the damp spots on the shirt into my fur. I opt to spare the owner the indignity of me borrowing their underwear. The pants are a little loose and long on me. I roll the cuffs up, but they still want to slip off. Carefully going to look in the nearby barn yields rope and a knife to cut it with to size a belt for myself. With the vest being big on me, I’m able to cover that up a bit and look at least decent. The lack of footwear would be an issue in Vienna, but out here, many still go barepawed.

After I’m dressed, I glance at the farmhouse. Lanternlight glows in its windows and woodsmoke slowly curls out of the chimney. The lupine farmer and his wife seem none the wiser to my presence, so I slink away toward a nearby country lane and follow that into the settlement. I want to stroll through town and see if I can get a clue on where Lorelei might be. Unfortunately, unless I run into her directly, I likely won’t know how to find her.

Walking through Herzok reminds me of Vienna, but on a much smaller scale. It has streetlights, and the roads are paved, but the buildings are much more modest here. Still, a lot has changed since my youth, and I see many modern buildings have been built. Unlike Strasek, I recognize nothing about this place. The Herzok I know was a small sleepy village I had little reason to visit. This Herzok is one full of life and people. Houses with light from lanterns inside line the road interspersed with shuttered stores and an occasional business open at night. The village I visited a century ago had almost no one out after dark. That’s not true anymore. I see many people are out and about, and while I am quite used to cities, I try to look unremarkable so nobody takes an interest in me.

The central square, with its warm glow of lights, would be at home in a quiet corner of Vienna or even Paris. Few of the old timber houses are left in the town’s center. Instead, they’ve been replaced with brick buildings that crowd next to each other. The older structures that do remain in town sport fresh coats of paint, ready to stand up to the wave of progress sweeping the land.

The tracks have not been laid on the new railroad alignment yet, but already an eloquent train station is nearing completion to link this area to the rest of the empire. It is also here, in a small wooden building, that I find the telegram office Ekrem spoke of. It sits open, with a gas lamp outside. I pause for a moment, considering. If Lorelei’s here and looking to communicate with anyone outside of the area, she’ll need to come here, but who knows when she’ll come or how often. I turn around, looking at the nearby streets.

They’re quiet, but down one I see a tavern. Walking toward it, I realize it’s more than just a tavern but a full-service inn with a common room. Above the door, as sign with the The Lupine Prince hangs. I consider for a moment and decide to enter and seek out a table.

The tavern is somewhat busy, and I approach the bar, where a wolf tends to the drinks.

“Fancy a room and a drink, friend?” he asks me when I’m close enough.

“Just a drink,” I ask. “Also, can I grab a table?”

“Sure, sure. What can I get you?”

“A bottle of red wine.”

He nods and picks up a glass. “Any preference on the vintage?”

“Just something dark.”

“Gotcha. Grab a table and I’ll be over.”

I select a table by a window to watch the street with and sit down. A minute later, the wolf brings over the bottle and a glass, which he sets down. I pay the man a guilder for the bottle and sit back to think as I open the bottle of wine.

This seems to be the closest place to the telegram office, but that doesn’t mean she’s here. Right now, I’m taking shots in the dark, but I can’t just go around asking for Lorelei, can I? Then again, what happened to Strasek can’t be a complete secret. Maybe I can get the bartender talking.

I pour some wine, and make a show of drinking alone, while I wait for the crowd to thin out some. About thirty minutes later, the bottle half gone, and feeling heavy and laden in my stomach from the wine, I get up and go over to the innkeeper and set it down on the bar as I take a stool.

“If you’ve got a minute my good friend, I’ve got a few questions for you.”

“Hmm?” he asks, looking up at me.

“Yes. I’ll be traveling Strasek to tomorrow, and I was wondering what you could tell me about it.”

“Strasek, why would you want to go to that accursed place?” says the innkeeper.

“Accursed, what do you mean by cursed?”

“Well,” he takes a moment to set down the glass he’s been polishing. “There are bad things afoot there. That place, it’s been like that for a while. Some say those days are over, but something else happened there a few weeks ago that makes me think the corruption never left. Now, we’ve got strange things happening in Tarcsa and all over the region. There’s also this woman looking for people, and I don’t trust her. She was here a few days ago asking questions. She asks the type of questions you don’t ask.”

I am taken back. Perhaps this will be easier than I thought it would be. “What do you mean the type of questions you don’t ask?”

The bartender chuckles. “The type of questions you don’t go around asking people about like what they eat and such. It’s very curious. My advice to you is don’t go to Strasek if you can avoid it, and if you’ve got business there, get your business handled and get out. There’s something bad going on over there, so don’t stay. Anyway, there’s no place to stay there now after the innkeeper got killed.”

“My good friend, I would like to know what I’m walking into because my business unfortunately is in Strasek.”

The innkeeper looks me over and frowns. He leans forward across the bar. “Things have been happening over there. I can’t say if it’s the villagers or not, but something ain’t right about Strasek. If you go during to the day, you’ll be fine,” he whispers. “There’s someone stalking the village at night, so don’t be caught there after dark. Whoever it is, they’re not the type of person you want to run into.”

“That sounds like a myth,” I offer, seeing if I can get more out of him.

“You’d think that, but this has happened before, about a hundred years ago or so. Some people went missing under mysterious circumstances and turned up with bite marks in their necks. The whole region was up in arms back then, but then things stopped. I wouldn’t give much credence to anything like that, but the innkeeper at the only inn in Strasek turned up dead recently with those same bite marks. Since then, others have vanished or turned up dead. Apparently two people went missing in Tarcsa a few days ago. They did find them eventually, but I hear what they found wasn’t pretty.”

“This sounds dangerous indeed.”

“It is, but that’s not the strangest part of it.”

I cock my ears. “It gets even more curious?”

“Oh yeah, but you best not worry about that. Just avoid the woman.”

“How will I know who she is?”

He chuckled. “Oh, you’ll know. She’s got this way about her, and she’s working for some noble too. Not sure who, but it could be the emperor himself for all I know. She’s one of the strangest wolves I’ve ever met though, and trust me, I’ve got some family that you would not like.”

My ears go up. “Is that so?” This isn’t Lorelei, so who is the wolf?

“Oh yeah. Now, enough chatter. I can see you worrying about things you shouldn’t. Just handle your business by day and avoid the wolf if you do see her. And whatever you do, don’t make a deal with her. She is asking for things that people shouldn’t, and if you ask me, I think she has the power to collect, but not without her noble friend present.”

“What could she ask for that people shouldn’t ask for?’

The lupine innkeeper shook his head. “A prick of your finger to test your blood like some type of mad scientist.”

“Blood?” I say softly as my mind races. One drop of my blood is all it takes to turn someone. Is someone trying to become a vampire?

“Yeah,” he says. “The whole thing is curious, and I want no part of it. It’s best you keep away from her. I don’t know anyone who did give it to her, so don’t worry about it though.”

I’m unsure what to make of this turn of events. I want to ask more, but I don’t want to arise suspicions. “I’ll do my best. Thank you, friend.”

“No problem. It’s my job to keep people happy and safe,” says the wolf with a little wag in his tail.

I let him get back to his chores, as I sit at the bar ponderinr what he told me. Who is this wolf he spoke of? Things don’t fit together, and until I get to the bottom of this all, I’m going to be in the dark.

#

After leaving the tavern, I wander around Herzok for a bit, trying to quell my stomach. It tolerates red wine, but not well. I also just drank a whole bottle of it. This bit with the wolf also just makes me uneasy, so I stroll around town for over an hour to help quell the ache. I’d walk around more, but it’s getting late, and I don’t want to draw attention to myself by wandering around after most people have gone to bed. I head back to where I got the clothes from, and I leave the clothng under the clothesline in the grass, after rubbing them into the earth a bit. I want to force the owners to rewash them, and I need to cover my scent with something. Hopefully they think a wild animal got into them or the wind knocked them down. To keep up the appearance, I also pull down one of the dresses and make sure it’s also dirty.

The length of rope I used as a belt I take with me and walk naked across the fields, picking at one of the ends with a claw to unravel it. I eventually drop it into the mud at the bottom of an irrigation ditch after making it badly frayed. Then I let the change take me and feel the earth fall away. Once I get some height, I begin circling Herzok, getting a better feel of how it has evolved. As far as I know, none of the other nearby towns have railway stations planned for them, yet the line looks like it will pass through Herzok to somewhere else.

Trying to follow the line out of Herzok though, it ends on the outskirts of town. Perhaps they haven’t surveyed further, or perhaps this might be the end of the line. Abandoning that wild speculation, I decide to head for Tarcsa to see how that looks. It’s the next place to investigate, and while it might be too late to wander the town, I can at least get a look at the place.

I set out in the general direction, but I quickly end up over woods, unsure of where it is. I have to turn around and fly back to Herzok, and then find the road to Strasek before I can set out for Tarsca. Following that, I know roughly when to turn to the east. Picking up a stream that flows through the fields, I catch where it intercepts the road from Strasek, and turn to follow that toward Tarsca, passing the little hamlet of Hez. That at least doesn’t look like it’s changed much, but that’s because it’s still just a small cluster of houses.

I am just getting my first glance of Tarcsa with the old castle the town is built next to touching the skyline, when in the distance I hear a screech. I glance trying to locate the sound, and something slams into me, knocking me to my side. Quickly, I try and beat my wings to steady myself and change directions. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another bat. It screeches, again and attempts to dive at me.

 I twist away from it, beating my wings, trying to get some distance. I’ve never had a bat attack me like this before. Getting another glance at my assailant, as I make the tightest turns I can, I see its wings are broad, and it’s face fanged, just like mine is.

This isn’t a normal bat. It’s a vampire in bat form.

I dive then, trying to gain speed, and I can hear whomever is pursue me trying to keep up. I’ve never even thought what fighting in this form would entail, so I’m having to learn quickly.

They have apparently attempted something like this before, because I feel fangs try and rake my back as they’ve caught up with me, and I’m forced to turn to the right and then bank quickly to the left, trying to cause them to overshoot.

From the cry I hear, I think this helps, but I don’t think I can outrun them. Diving down, I’m almost to ground level when I let go of the form, and tumble back into my true self, rolling across a field of grain. I climb to my feet shaken, bleeding and naked. I’m cut up from the attack, but in my normal form, I might stand a chance.

“Show yourself!” I call out, hissing angrily.

The bat veers around me, and circles me shrieking, waiting to see what I’m going to do. There’s nothing I can use as a weapon here, but as it circles me, I count the seconds, and when I think I have my timing right, I lunge at the bat, trying to swat it out of the sky with my paw.

My claws are dull, but my reflexes are sharp. I manage to connect and knock the creature to the side, raking it in the process. I turn to pounce, but my quarry screams bloody murder and escapes my grasp, flying up, favoring a wing. I wonder if they’re coming back, but they fly off, leaving me in the field of grain alone.

I sigh, and flop down onto the ground. My back has gashes from being bitten in the air, and I’m sore from hitting the ground. I debate walking back to Strasek, but that would take a while. With a sigh I get up and check the skies. My attacker seems to have decided to abandon this right now, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Satisfied they seem to be gone for now, I change back into my winged form and head toward Strasek.

#

On the way back to Strasek I try and figure what’s going on. Is the vampire I encountered tonight behind these additional attacks? Why is this wolf asking people for their blood? I need answers, and I don’t know how to find them. None of this makes sense. I make a stop near Hez to feed on some cattle, but I’m cautious and only take what I need. Back in the air, I wonder if I’m being tailed.

Half an hour later, when I arrive back in Strasek, I decide to swoop in low to the buildings, flying between the houses toward the square. No one is out to notice me. Arriving in the central square, I find a house with the upper floor overarching the first a little, and I land upside down, hanging off the woodwork to wait.

The town is quiet, and I do not hear the beating of wings or any type of pursuit. After ten minutes, satisfied that I’ve escaped my pursuer and they’ve not followed me back here, I head toward the curiosity shop across the street and quickly enter the open window.

Quickly changing back to my fox form, I make a soft thump as my paws land. Ekrem rouses himself from the bed.

“Did you find her?” he mumbles, glancing up at me, where I am still bathed in the moonlight.

“No,” I say, walking back to the window and closing it. “But I found someone else.”

He tilts his head and gets up off the bed, and wrinkles his nose at me, sorting out the scents I’ve brought back. “Who?”

“Another vampire, whoever they are.” I turn around. “You can see they did not take kindly to my presence.”

He frowns and turns up the lantern that has been sitting by his bed. “You’re hurt, and bleeding,” he says, surprised, looking over my naked body.

“They found me in bat form. I hope I gave them as bad as they gave me, but they were in Tarsca.”

“Tarsca?” he asks. “I thought you went to Herzok.”

“I did. I learned in a tavern something happened in Tarsca recently, so I thought I’d go look at the town. This vampire, whoever they are, is apparently there, or was at least.”

He considers. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“The barkeeper I talked didn’t know all the details. There’s also someone else in this who seems to be investigating what’s going on, a wolf of some kind. The barkeeper didn’t say much about her except to tell me to avoid her.”

Ekrem frowns. “What’s going on?”

“That’s a good question,” I say, sighing. “I don’t see how this all relates, or why it is happening now.”

“Is Strasek in danger?” he asks, grabbing a cloth to tend to my wounds.

“It shouldn’t be. I came here to say goodbye, but perhaps there’s more to it. I’ll be fine also after I let this heal,” I say, noticing the concerned look he’s giving me.

He pushes me to turn me around. “I did not spend three weeks watching you to have you go get yourself hurt again.”

“I’ll be fine!” I protest.

“Let me get some bandages, and I’ll bind these up.”

I sigh and grumble. “I am not so fragile I cannot face fate as it comes. The road before me is not easy or sunny.”

“That doesn’t mean I want you broken.”

Me, broken? Hardly. I will see this though. I should protest, but the stern look on his face, and the lashing of his tail dissuades me. Instead, I just sit down an and let him go get some bandages.